


break the lock if it don't fit

by torigates



Category: Happy Endings (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 12:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torigates/pseuds/torigates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Penny met Dave when she was fourteen years old, and she was pretty sure he was going to be her boyfriend. She wanted him to be her boyfriend, anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	break the lock if it don't fit

 

 

  
Penny met Dave when she was fourteen years old, and she was pretty sure he was going to be her boyfriend. She wanted him to be her boyfriend, anyway.

Obviously, that didn’t happen.

There was always another girl. A different, prettier, skinnier, blonder girl. Now that she knew Dave better, Penny was glad nothing ever happened between them. He was her best and oldest friend, and Penny would never change their relationship, and what they had now.

That was most days. On her bad days, her low days, when Penny felt sorry for herself she couldn’t help but think about how not even her best friend had wanted to date her.

That was a secret she never told anyone.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

Penny loved all her friends dearly. Even when they were they were getting on her last nerve, even when they were being their most difficult. She loved them.

She met Jane when they were fifteen years old. Jane was driven and dedicated in a way that Penny always promised herself she would be, but never could quite manage. Jane was the kind of person who stayed up all night doing the meaningless little assignments Penny was convinced even her teachers didn’t even care about.

They were assigned to work on a science lab together. It was the most miserable week of Penny’s high school career, and that included the whole Andy Weinberg fiasco of junior year.

When they were done, Jane marched up to her in the cafeteria. “You were a good partner,” she said matter of fact. “We should work together again.”

Penny laughed for two minutes straight. Jane didn’t bat an eye. “Oh you’re serious,” she said when she could catch her breath. “No. No, no.”

Jane looked briefly hurt, and then she squared her shoulders.

“I’m never working with you again,” Penny said. “You’re a crazy dictator,” she smiled. “Want to go to the mall later?”

Jane looked briefly thrown. Penny had the distinct impression that Jane was the kind of girl who didn’t go to malls.

“Sure,” she said. She looked confused. Penny made room for her on the bench, and Jane sat down.

As ill-fit as the two of them may have seemed, Penny and Jane worked great together. Jane harassed her to do her homework, and Penny got Jane to relax. She also taught Jane how to dress (Jane would never admit it, but she had horrible fashion sense before Penny came along. Penny liked to pull out photos of Jane wearing long sweatshirts and baggy jeans).

It turned out that Jane was super hot.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

Penny loved Jane, and when Jane invited her over for dinner and introduced her little sister Alex, she loved Alex too.

It was an obvious cliché to say that they were sisters who couldn’t be more different, but Penny supposed these things came to be clichés because they were true. The one thing Alex and Jane had in common was their looks, and most days Penny found it completely unfair that she had to stand next to them on a regular basis.

No one was going to notice her when faced with two drop dead gorgeous leggy blondes. No one _did_ notice her. On one memorable occasion, Penny actually said the words, “Can anyone _see_ me right now?” out loud, causing all heads in the close proximity to turn her way. It was not how she would have wanted to get her wish.

She spent a lot of time wishing people (okay, boys) would look at her the way they looked at Alex and Jane.

“Any guy would be lucky to have you,” they said. If Penny had a nickel for every time she heard someone say that, she probably wouldn’t have to work a day in her life.

She didn’t care how lucky _any_ guy would be to have her. She just wanted _one_ boy to want her.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

It wasn’t like _no_ boys wanted her.

She dated, she had boyfriends. She would throw herself wholeheartedly into her relationships; convinced that one, and then the next would be the one that stuck.

They never did.

By the time that Alex had Dave and Jane had Brad, sometimes Penny felt so lonely in her single status that she couldn’t stand to be around them. Sure, she had Max, but it wasn’t the same thing. Max _wanted_ to be single. Max liked being alone.

Sometimes they would go out to the bar, just the three of them for a girls’ night. Alex and Jane would point out this guy or that guy. “You should go talk to him,” they said.

Sometimes Penny would. Sometimes she would see the way all the male eyes in the bar would be drawn to their table. Checking out Alex and Jane, and she would think to herself, can anyone see me?

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

Of course, things weren’t always that way. On her good days, most days, Penny knew she was just as awesome as her friends. She knew she was awesome on her own, that she didn’t need a boy to make her so. On her good days, Penny believed that.

She believed things would work themselves out. She would meet a boy who was lucky to have her, yes, but more importantly, she would be lucky to have him.

She would meet someone who wanted her for her and who didn’t even notice Alex and Jane, even when they were standing right next to her.

Penny knew that.

She might not be as skinny, or as blonde, or as pretty as Alex and Jane. She would never be any of those things. After a lifetime of being the chubby friend, the awkward friend, the plucky best friend who never got noticed, Penny had made her peace with that.

The truth was, she was grateful, because being all those things had taught her that she had something just as wonderful, just as amazing, just as beautiful as Alex and Jane inside her.

That was the secret she wanted to tell everyone.


End file.
